KYIV — The retreat of Ukrainian troops from Crimea picked up pace Thursday as the European Union waffled on heavier sanctions and President Valdimir Putin ordered hastened construction of a bridge to join the secessionist peninsula with mainland Russia.

Pro-Russian crowds seized two Ukrainian warships Thursday and Ukraine said its troops were still under threat in Crimea. Tensions in the region remained high despite the release of a Ukrainian naval commander held by pro-Russian forces.

Shots were fired but there were no casualties as the Ukrainian corvette Khmelnitsky was seized in Sevastopol, according to an AP photographer at the scene. Another ship, the Lutsk, was also surrounded by pro-Russian forces.

Just how many retreating troops Ukraine will have to absorb in what amounts to a military surrender of Crimea was unclear Thursday. Many servicemen have already switched sides to Russia, but authorities said they were prepared to relocate as many as 25,000 soldiers and their families to the Ukrainian mainland.

With thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and sailors trapped on military bases, surrounded by heavily armed Russian forces and pro-Russia militia, the Kyiv government said it was drawing up plans to evacuate its outnumbered troops from Crimea back to the mainland and would seek U.N. support to turn the peninsula into a demilitarized zone.

Related

At Belbek airbase in the wine-growing country near Crimea’s southwestern coast, airmen were leaving Thursday morning toting plastic shopping or garbage bags filled with their personal belongings.

They weren’t evacuating, they said, just transferring their things to a safe place. They were worried that pro-Russian mobs might loot the facility, as they heard happened the day before in nearby Sevastopol.

In that incident, the commander of Ukraine’s navy was freed after being held by Russian forces and local Crimean militia at the navy’s headquarters. Rear Adm. Sergei Haiduk and an unspecified number of civilians were held for hours after the navy’s base in Sevastopol was stormed Wednesday. Early reports said the storming was conducted by a self-described local defence force, but on Thursday acting President Oleksandr Turchynov said Russian forces were involved.

Since the Russian forces took charge in Crimea, Ukrainian-enlisted personnel and officers have been bottled up in barracks and other buildings at one end of the Belbek base, with the Russians in control of the airfield.

“We’re waiting for what Kyiv, our leadership, tells us,” said one major, who declined to give his name. The major said he expected about half of the personnel still at the base to accept the Russian offer to stay and join the Russian armed forces because they are Crimea natives.

Humbled but defiant, Ukraine lashed out symbolically at Russia by declaring its intent to leave the Moscow-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States, a loose alliance of 11 former Soviet nations. The last nation to leave the group was Georgia, which fought a brief war with neighbouring Russia in 2008 and ended up losing two separatist territories.

“We are working out a plan of action so that we can transfer not just servicemen, but first of all, members of their family who are in Crimea, quickly and effectively to mainland Ukraine,” said Andriy Parubiy, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council.

Parubiy said yesterday the country plans to seek compensation for assets that Russia has seized in the peninsula.

Outside Moscow, President Vladimir Putin opened a meeting of senior government ministers by demanding updates on the transportation and infrastructure in Crimea. Putin ordered that the government move swiftly to begin construction of a bridge that would provide an overland link for cars and trains directly between Crimea and Russia. At present, no such link exists.

Russia plans to spend at least 50 billion rubles to build the bridge across the Strait of Kerch to connect the peninsula to Russia’s mainland, Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov told reporters.

Russia is also considering building an underwater tunnel in addition to the bridge, which will be able to carry cars and trains, Sokolov said at a meeting with Putin Wednesday.

Spending on Crimea will probably reach $5 billion, including about $2.8 billion for transportation infrastructure and $1 billion for reconstruction of recreational facilities, Deputy Economy Minister Alexei Likhachev said Thursday at an investment forum in Tokyo.

In Washington, President Barack Obama announced Thursday that he is expanding the group of Russians being sanctioned by the U.S. to include wealthy oligarchs in the inner circle of the Russian President, more senior government officials and a Russian bank.

In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the European Union won’t rush to impose economic sanctions on Russia for the annexation of Crimea, reflecting concerns that trade curbs would damage Europe’s tentative recovery.

Germany, which is Russia’s biggest EU trading partner, expects the 28-country bloc to expand measures in place including travel bans and asset freezes, Merkel told lawmakers in Berlin before leaving for an EU summit in Brussels. It is too early to enact “stage three” economic retaliation, she said.

Special trading relationships that several countries have with Russia, coupled with the fallout from Europe’s debt crisis, are frustrating a united response to the most serious threat to the European order since the Cold War.

Sanctions require the agreement of all EU governments, a consensus-building process that can’t match Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speed in mobilizing troops in Crimea, staging the secession referendum and moving toward annexation.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, yesterday proposed adding US$1.4 billion to previously budgeted support for Ukraine. The European aid would accompany an International Monetary Fund package that is being negotiated.

At a summit on March 6, the EU suspended trade and travel talks with Russia and paved the way to the imposition on March 17 of asset freezes and visa bans on 13 Russian and eight Crimean officials. The bloc also warned Russia that “any further steps” to “destabilize the situation in Ukraine” would trigger a host of economic restrictions.

Leaders will spar Thursday over whether Russia crossed that red line by taking control of Crimea. Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel said that opinions within the bloc vary over whether the seizure of that majority-Russian-speaking region is the trigger for harsher penalties.

“Among the 28 there are very wide gaps,” Bettel said Wednesday. “There are countries that have very different positions.”

The need for EU unanimity gives leverage to countries like Cyprus, which is chafing at the terms imposed by European governments in exchange for a 10 billion-euro bailout that ravaged the island’s economy.

Cyprus remains a beacon for Russian investment as it tries to fix an economy that shrank 6 percent last year. Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides told state-run RIK radio on March 18 that Cyprus opposes further sanctions.

One option is to widen the EU blacklist to include figures in Putin’s inner circle, officials said. The first list left the president’s office untouched, while the U.S. targeted Putin confidantes including Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who was the Kremlin’s envoy to NATO when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008.